Tuesday 15th June 2021
Last night and this morning was spent playing with the pactor modem. It’s working now and I briefly connected to a shore station (HAM) and sent an email. However if I use high power, or anything more than quite low power really, I get interference back to the modem. Apparently this is very common, in fact a few weeks ago, I just happened to be chatting to my neighbour on his T37 about SSB and he said he couldn’t use his modem for exactly this reason.
When I was 15, I operated my HAM station (G4dly) out of my bedroom and initially caused interference on everyone’s TV and Radio, I remember the neighbour had the home office radio engineers out they were so fed up with it. I offered to help, but they insisted I was the problem, not their telly, however once they were told by the home office that there telly was in fact illegally receiving my transmissions, and I was in the clear, they were happy for me to fit some filters, which I think solved the problem. Anyway, the reason I mention this is, that during that time, I researched the socks off radio frequency interference (RFI), and I think got quite good at it. So solving the problem here should be a doddle, if I can just remember what I knew 47 years ago 🙁 .
If I can get this working well, I will have a way to get weather forecasts and update friends and family on my whereabouts, wherever I am in the world. For the South Pacific passages, I may well have satellite comms, and if Mr Musk hurries up, I might even have broadband, I’m on his waiting list. Having this is a good backup.
So lunchtime Tuesday and I head off into the heat on my bicycle to search for Ferrite Rings, these are the modern way of reducing interference. Pictures below.
Sadly after a few hours of cycling and visiting 5 electronic component shops I had to give up. It looks like an amazon.mx job now.
I pop into Ley on the way back, and find the vegan section, I now have a selection of Chorizo sausage and meatballs to try.
Wednesday
I arrange for Rafa the fridge engineer to call back and see if he can find the coolant leak, this involves emptying out the cockpit lockers again. Before I do that, I take the SSB ATU connections off and remake these, I notice the earth of the ATU is connected to a 2″ wide copper strip/wire. This stuff snakes around the bilge and I’m not a fan of it. A bit of a waggle and it crumbles apart. I’m wondering if it was doing any good at all so I fire up the SSB without the earth on, and it tunes up just fine, telling me the ATU is finding its earth back from the SSB rig via the coax, or down the 12v cable. Either way, this is not good for the rig, tuning, transfer of power to the backstay/atmosphere, and especially not good for keeping the stray radiation inside the boat to a minimum. I dig out some heavy cable and route it from the ATU down into the bilge. While rummaging for said cable, I find a couple of ceiling fans that run on mains power. I tie one to the ceiling, remembering how well it worked in the past somewhere, probably Malaysia, before realising it’s 240v, so not a lot of use unless I run long leads around. So I head off to the Hipermarket to see if they sell a 110v version of the same thing. There’s something comforting about having a large revolving fan in the ceiling, perhaps I have some British empire colonial DNA kicking around.
And this is what I ended up with 😉
Thursday
Rafa confirms there is a slow leak from the evaporator in the fridge and that I might as well buy a whole new system, $1000 in the USA but more like $1700 by the time it gets here with shipping and taxes. And that’s between countries that have a trade deal and a land border. I would be tempted to sail up to San Diego and buy it there and fit it myself, as I could also get a load of other stuff I need, like a VHF Radio, VHF handheld, Watermaker stuff etc etc, but I don’t have the required visa anymore, and would have to get that in London, also Covid would probably stop me anyway.
While the locker is empty, I crawl down to inspect the earth bonding connections, and tie in the new cable I pushed down for the ATU. Perhaps I should explain, the ATU is the Aerial Tuning Unit and makes the backstay that holds the mast up, appear to be the perfect length wire for the SSB transmitter. The SSB being the radio I use for long distance, over the horizon, communications. I clean a lot of connections up, put new lugs on a few wires and tighten down the connections to the sintered bronze earth block and the Zinc Anodes.
Back at the SSB, the background noise seems much lower, and the rig is tuning up better, so I’m very pleased, however with MF/HF Radio signals, you can never be sure if it’s just a good/bad day for radio propagation. I try the Pactor modem again, and it’s slightly better, but still falling over as the radio transmissions are getting into the Modem. Later I pop over to have a chat with Denis on Ultegra, a fine sloop from Vancouver, the boat that is. We have a nice chat, he was a pilot operating float planes out of Alert bay for a while, I feel so cool to be able to just say, “Oh yeah, we know Alert bay well, been there many times” , of course he knows Sointula / Malcolm island well as it’s only a mile or so away and confirms my suspicion that there’s a little bit of tension between the two islands. Alert Bay is on Cormorant Island which has very strong roots with the First Nations people, whereas Sointula looks to Finland for its history. As far as I could tell, both Islands got on well but it’s a reminder to me how tensions exist between practically every grouping of people, no matter how similar they and their situations are. Enough philosophy, the main thing here is that Dennis had some ferrite rings which I borrowed.
They helped a lot and I managed to send an email to myself via a mexican HAM Pactor station. I also sent one to Dirk, but I’m not sure if that arrived yet. I need more ferrite, and perhaps a different routing of the cables. But all in all I think we are almost there with the Pactor/SSB.
No sign of activity at the top of the mast, it has been 16 days now since I saw Egg number 1, it should hatch anyday, however I think it might take a little while before I can see any babies up there. I’ve just realised that I don’t know much about this, I presume it’s one baby per egg? How do double yolkers fit into this? And if you want to tell me hens eggs for eating are different to chick carrying eggs, then I say visit the markets in Thailand!
Friday 18th June
Rafa returns, he has left his pressure gauge on the fridge overnight, and he confirms the pressure has not dropped. He, and I concur, that the leak is in the evaporator. I don’t know if you remember I went on at some length about the overwhelming urge I have to hack the ice off the evaporator when defrosting 🙁
Anyway, it seems that with the ice buildup from the last two recharges, that the ice is stopping the leak. So as long as I keep the fridge frosted I might get away with it. It sounds like a plan, and I’m going for it. Just as soon as I can get a replacement I will though.
We have a tropical storm that is threatening to turn into a proper hurricane and it’s only a few days away. It’s heading towards Mazatlan, at least that’s the clickbait version of things, I expect it will fizzle out before it gets here, and even if it does get here, it’s unlikely to harm us given our location up a long channel inland.
Still it’s a worry, and we will almost certainly get some wind from it. I worry for my feathered friends as they might have a job coping.
I take a walk around the marina to stretch my legs and on the way back I notice it has got dark rather quickly, looking up I can see very menacing clouds racing above, very soon the whole sky is a dark grey and the wind has picked up. I know it’s not storm Dolores, as she’s been named, but I expect it’s a squall thats spun off her, or at least been in some way affected. It could also just be caused by a local heat spot, either way, back at the boat the wind has picked up to maybe 20-25 knots in gusts, and I have to take down some covers I had up to deflect the sun, as they are trying to head north. I hope the bird(s) are ok.
Just before sunset I head over to Dennis’s boat to return the ferrite rings and upon looking up the mast I can’t see the nest. I grab the binoculars and wander around the pontoon to get a better view but I can’t see the nest anywhere. Now I’m quite worried. It’s too late to be going up the mast to check, and when I’m at Dennis’s boat he says he can see the nest from his angle, I can’t but perhaps they have squashed up against the light to avoid the wind. I decide a mast climb is in order for first thing in the morning.
Saturday.
The Hurricane hasn’t happened, the storm headed inland, but we can expect some wind and rain soon. So with some trepidation I head up the mast, I have already had a good look with the binoculars from various places in the marina and I’m pretty sure they have left. As I approach the top it’s clear they are not there. The mother has flown away, and there’s no nest, as for the egg I think there were two possible scenarios. 1) The squall blew the nest away and the egg crashed to the ground, or 2) the egg had hatched and the mother and baby flew away when the squall started, and the squall scattered the nest to the winds.
Now in all my years I have generally found that stuff that falls of the mast ends up on the deck, despite the strong wind, the boat wasn’t rocking much at all, and so I am certain if egg or chick had fallen, it would be on the deck below, and it isn’t. I have had a good look. So I am going with the fact that Mother and Baby are safe and happily cooing away from their new home.
I have started to tidy the boat, and have booked my place in Marina La Paz for three months starting next Saturday.
I hope the baby bird got away, I can’t think that I could of done much more to help, in the end it had to deal with the forces of nature, as birds have been doing since birds began I expect.
Sunday
It rained last night, around 3am, there was lightning and thunder and a serious downpour. This will not seem like much of an event to those back home, but for me, it was the first decent downpour I have seen for probably a year now. we have had maybe 2 or 3 showers in the last year, but no propper rain. The only downside to this is that the mosquitos now have plenty of places to lay eggs.
In the morning I load up the dinghy with 6 * 20 ltr empty diesel cans and head around to the fuel dock, only to find they must all be at church. I will go back tomorrow. I have a full tank of 200 ltrs, but at 5 litres/hour (on a bad day) thats 40 hours of motoring, and it’s about 220 miles to La Paz, at 5 knots, that would be 44 hours, so I would like some reserve. Saying that, I plan to sail for most of the passage. After launching the dinghy, I scan the foredeck closely for any signs of egg, and there’s nothing.
Another trip to Walmart to stock up on a few things for now, and for the passage. I took a snap of a missing manhole cover en route that I nearly cycled into the other night. It was dark and I just picked it up with my bike light. My bike would easily fit through that hole. One hopes that after sailing two oceans, one might eventually be able to go out in a bit of style, lost at sea, is fine with me. But not by falling into a drain on the way home from Walmart.
So I will publish the blog now as tomorrow, Monday, I’m going to be quite busy preparing the boat for sea. I have to take down tarps that have been keeping me cool, stow the bike and the new fan, get the fuel and provisions, get the dinghy back on board , etc etc.
I plan to hit the sea on Tuesday morning around 8:00, I have to find out the latest dredging schedule. It’s looking good for swell at the moment, and hopefully once I’m out of the marina it should be a simple 2 day passage.
I’m desperate for some peace and quiet, without the tourist boats blasting out their Banda and Rap music, so instead of going straight to La Paz, I will get within a half days sail and slip into a cove near Balandra or on Espiritu Santo and enjoy some peace and do a bit of snorkeling and swimming. I have booked a place in Marina De La Paz from Saturday until the end of September. Once there I will start to strip the boat outside, sails/covers/canopies and even the solar panels will come off as I will be leaving the boat all alone during hurricane season, it needs to have the least wind resistance possible. Just in case.